Tanzania Media Women's Association (TAMWA) executive director Ananilea Nkya

The Trade Union Congress of Tanzania (TUCTA) has proposed that the new constitution should change the system of getting elected members of parliament from constituencies, saying they should instead come from administrative districts.

Tucta said that 360 MPs was a burden to the government, arguing that the number could be cut if elected from administrative districts.

It said a lot of money was being used to service the national Assembly while other sectors remained without adequate funds to run them, resulting in poor services and strikes at the workplace, as was the case now with doctors.

The suggestion was made by Tanzania Media Women's Association (TAMWA) executive director Ananilea Nkya, who was representing Tucta women workers recently at a symposium held in Dar es Salaam to mark International Women’s Day.

She said cutting the number of MPs by coming up with a system of representation through the country's 114 districts would result in a total number of 228 MPs if each district had two MPs, thus saving billions of shillings.

Nkya said if the system were changed and the MPs system were elected from districts, the Special Seats MPs arrangement could be abolished because a single district would produce male and female legislators.

She added that electing MPs from their districts would do away with the tendency by people from towns to go to rural areas to contest for representation.

She however said that if the proposed system by Tucta were to be included in the new constitution, then the two MPs representing the district should serve the voters by dividing the district  into wards, whereby each MP would have a confined area of representation.

Meanwhile, Constitution and Legal Affairs minister Celina Kombani has said that it was the right time for women to present their views to be included in the new constitution.

She vowed that she would fight to make sure the new constitution offered equal opportunities to both genders because discriminating the female gender had caused women to be dependent on men at all levels.